Editorial: Timid response by Congress on gun control

Mar. 21, 2013

Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who survived a gunshot to the head in 2011, during a mass shooting in Tucson, Ariz., sits ready with her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, at a Jan. 30 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. / AP

It is not too soon to wonder whether the slaughter in Newtown was sufficiently ghastly and shameful enough to prod Congress into passing meaningful gun-control legislation.

Americans looking for forceful action — like the sweeping restrictions enacted into law in New York two weeks ago — certainly heard little encouragement during Wednesday's gun-control hearings on Capitol Hill.

Even the most rudimentary fixes — like a sensible proposal requiring universal background checks for firearms buyers — were met with head-in-the-sand opposition. The rule of the day: Set expectations low.

"The deaths in Newtown should not be used to put forward every gun-control measure that has been floating around for years," Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, told the Senate Judiciary Hearing. From Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who called the expired 1994 federal assault weapons ban a "singularly ineffective" piece of legislation — notwithstanding the powerful firepower it once kept off the streets: "Emotion often leads to bad policies."

Even Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., stopped short of endorsing the toughest gun-control measures backed by President Barack Obama and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who has introduced a new ban on assault weapons. But Leahy, in sharp questioning of Wayne LaPierre, chief lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, helped show why it will be a heavy lift to enact even modest reforms.

He reminded LaPierre the NRA once supported universal background checks for buyers; under federal law, private sales are excluded from such checks — a loophole the nation will need to close as part of a larger effort to keep criminals, the seriously mentally ill, and other prohibited persons from buying weapons.

NRA's changed view

"We think it's reasonable to provide mandatory instant criminal background checks for every sale at every gun show. No loopholes anywhere for anyone," LaPierre told members of Congress in 1999, in testimony resurrected by Leahy. The NRA chief's flip-flopping position Wednesday: "My problem with background checks is you're never going to get criminals to go through universal background checks." He said the answer was more prosecutions of criminals who seek to buy guns, not more background checks.

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There is broad public support for universal background checks: 85 percent of respondents to a Pew Research Center poll backed such checks in a Jan. 9-13 survey; likewise, 80 percent backed laws preventing people with mental illness from purchasing guns — a prohibition that would have little force without a strong background law.

Leahy offered another convincing argument for such checks: he noted that women in the U.S. are killed "at alarming rates" by armed domestic-violence abusers, but in states that require background checks for handgun sales, 38 percent fewer women are shot by their partner.

Baltimore Police Chief Jim Johnson testified that in homes where there is a gun and a history of domestic violence there is a 500 percent increase in the chance "that that person will be victimized by gun violence."

More gun deaths

The American people will not be well-served by low expectations on Capitol Hill. Congress should pass a new ban on assault weapons; restrict sales of high-capacity ammunition magazines; enact universal background checks; and get behind new research to stop gun violence. Reasons to act reach far beyond Newtown, where a gunman in December killed 20 first-graders, six educators, and his own mother.

By one count — see the map of gun-violence deaths at Slate.com — those losses have since been followed by roughly 1,440 others, by all manner of circumstances. While gun-control advocate Capt. Mark Kelly, husband of Tucson shooting victim and former Rep. Gabby Giffords, was answering lawmakers' questions Wednesday, authorities in Arizona were responding to another multiple-victim shooting spree, in an office complex. And the day before, 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, who performed at President Obama's inaugural festivities, was killed when a gunman opened fire on a group of students about a mile from Obama's Chicago home.

For those victims, the gun-violence debate was not answered in their favor; timid and dallying lawmakers only compound the losses.